SYDNEY POLICE SEXUALLY ASSAULT AUSTRALIA'S MUFTI, SHEIKH TAJ EL-DIN AL HILALY
by MuslimMediaWatch & IslamicSydney.com 8:45am Tue Jan 7 '03 article#25053 A personal account by the Mufti's assistant describes the assault on him. http://www.islamicsydney.com/story.php?id=772 Note: to view the article at its source, visit the URL and scroll down below the related corporate news article. Actions Of Over Zealous Police In Arresting Imam Could Ignite Community Tensions By Keysar Trad MuslimMediaWatch & IslamicSydney.com Tuesday, January 7, 2003 Keysar Trad, Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilaly's official translator and assistant, gives us his account of what happened. Sheikh was pulled over by highway patrol because a plastic angle building strip was protruding out his window (about 5 cms protrusion). The officer took his license and made him wait in the car, whilst he was waiting for them to make their routine checks, the officer kept the Mufty in the car in the heat in the middle of the day, he was kept there for a little over 20 minutes. A crowd naturally began to form as this was about 1.5 kms from the main mosque on the very busy King Georges Rd. 20 mins later they advised him that the rego had just expired on his car. He told them that he was not aware of this as this is something normally handled by the office. The officer insisted on a full body search in public and a full search of the car. The Mufty told him that this would create a scene as a large crowd had formed and volunteered to go with him to the station where he would willingly submit to a search. The officer told him that he has to search him right there and then. One of the neighbours came to interpret and said to the officer that this would be seen by the onlookers as a major insult to the religion. The officer then said that they could go in the side street. Unfortunately, at that stage, the side street was also full of onlookers. An Arabic speaking officer came on the scene at this stage (he was not there from the start) and the Mufty was offered to be taken to nearby flats where he could be searched, this sounded ridiculous (to take him to a strange house and ask the occupants to leave so that the police could search him), he advised them again to take him to the station, the officer called for more backup and some very burly officers came and grabbed the interpreter, twisted his arm and pushed him to the floor. The Mufty very calmly asked them to leave the young man alone as he grew concerned over the way the young man was being handled. He appealed to the officers to leave this young man alone, he touched the officer on the arm or shoulder and pleaded with him to leave the young man alone. At this stage, more reinforcements arrived, they grabbed the Mufty in an aggressive manner, they cuffed him and slammed him onto one of their vans and searched him in public, they emptied out his pockets and did a full body search. During this process, the Mufty continued to appeal to the onlookers for calm and he told the officers that he felt that they were disrespectful and racist in their behaviour. After this rough treatment, they realised that this effected his health and he was in a grave condition and took him to hospital with the cuffs on, they removed the cuffs in the hospital and told the hospital staff that he was arrested for assaulting an officer. This is a ridiculous allegation to lay against a 62 year old who had only recently had a triple bypass. I spoke to many witnesses including the young man who was badly handled by the police and they all expressed their shock and horror over the way this police officer and the reinforcements handled the Mufty. When I first called the police to find out how the matter could get so out of hand, I received mixed messages from them. Over the years, the Muslim community and the Mufty had established a very good working relationship with the police. We should not allow the actions of one over zealous officer to undermine this relationship. What had transpired is disappointing, aggravating, disconcerting and alarming from many different angles. This is likely to lead to further misunderstanding on talkback radio. The Mufty did the right thing by advising the officer not to subject him to a humiliating body search in public on that busy road, especially as the officer was very disrespectful. I could only imagine the reaction of onlookers to this behaviour by the officer, especially being so close to the mosque. Exacerbating this incident, the police issued a media statement indicating that there would be a summons for: driving with a protruding load, driving an unregistered uninsured car, resisting arrest and assaulting police. He was pulled over of the five centimetre protrusion, everything else was secondary, we are waiting to check the registration papers to see whether the car is in fact out of registration as we have not seen a renewal notice at the office, the Mufty said that they did not return his drivers license to him, we still have not had access to the papers. We are not talking about a young person in a hotted up car, we are referring to a 62 year old man who is also a figurehead, the actions of the officer were out of hand, we have to remain calm and rational, we should not allow this incident to undermine all the great work that the community had done over the years. -- http://www.islamicsydney.com/story.php?id=772 -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
